Load balancing is a technique for spreading work among a number of computers, processes, hard disks, or other resources to improve resource utilization and decrease computing time. Load balancing typically involves dividing an amount of work between two or more computers so that more work gets done in the same amount of time and so that, in general, all users get served faster. Load balancing can be implemented via hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software.
Often, in active-standby load balancing, the resources in the standby unit tend to be wasted, as the standby unit is usually sitting idle, waiting for a failover to occur. To scale the resources, an additional pair of load balancers may be employed. Such an approach, however, is an inefficient way to scale.